Behind these castle walls
by happycat12
Summary: The story of a princess and a spy, past and present
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Notes:_

Right so I have gotten slightly addicted to the trash TV that is the Royals and consequently have had to puzzle out what the heck is going on with these characters and put it into a fic.

My notes on characters area below:

 **Eleanor:** love her, but she is pretty screwed up and this stems before Robert's death. I think something tragic happened to her to make her so messed up and addicted to the drink, drugs and promiscuity (note one – work that into fic somehow). Here I have put Eleanor getting addicted to drinking first which is like a gateway drug to harder stuff. She does get some good lines in too.

Also I think she feels like her mother has betrayed her (this must have been a while back as its not a new thing) and in the script her mother is threatened by her youth and beauty (note 2 must work this into fic land).

Loves her Dad and her brother. Also weirdly at the end of series 1 she ends up being the hero (not heroine of the series given that she has a lot more courage than her brother which is a pretty interesting move for the show.

 **Eleanor/ Beck:** can I say frankly that I loved this whole episode and I was totally shipping them in a starcrossed lovers kind of way. I think I like this idea since it is in the plot of my favourite book of all time Shadow of the Moon which is set in India where our heroine Winter marries the wrong man and spends the rest of the book in love with Alex who is the best hero ever. And then the country literally explodes in violence so they go on the run together during the Indian mutiny but that is another story. Anyway falling in love with someone unavailable gives Eleanor a lot of depth as a character. I loved the way they portrayed that he was basically in love with her too. In my head his marriage is a youthful mistake that he's now regretting. This is going into the fic somehow.

 **Eleanor/ Jasper:** talk about chemistry! The actors are doing a great job portraying hate, love and desire here. These 2 are fascinating and its like watching spiders fighting in a basin. Have read some fics where they are all lovey dovey – no way! That's a long way from the script. There are moments where they might be sweet to each other but most of the time they are verbally scratching out each others eyes and steaming up the screen. Which makes me wonder what the hell goes on between the sheets…

 **Jasper:** series 2 writers seeing you have kept us waiting for ages on this there better be a really good back story for Jasper about why he's at the Palace. I'm talking intrigue, deception and plausible back story too. I know this is trash TV but it had better be good. If you can't write a decent enough backstory on this then please see the writers from Spooks. He had better be working for the forces of good not evil. Or I might possibly accept him working for the forces of evil but double crossing them to come over from the dark side to the good side. Am putting my version of his back story into the fic.

NB Warning: the content of this story is quite adult and it contains non consensual sex scenes.

* * *

 _Well she lives in a fairy tale  
Somewhere too far for us to find  
Forgotten the taste and smell  
Of a world that she's left behind_

To the rest of the world, her family seems perfect. King Simon – their kind, principled and well beloved ruler, Queen Helena his beautiful and dignified wife and their two golden sons and pretty dark haired daughter. But the image is a long way from reality.

When she's five she's sent to boarding school, the same age her brothers are shipped off to school. She is brought up by strangers and her life is ruled by a series of bells and oppressive rules about what she can and can't do. When the teacher comes into the room, they must stand until they are told they are allowed to sit. She can wear her blazer with her school pinafore but she may not wear her cardigan out in public. Hats must be worn on the street at all times. On Sundays they leave for church sharp at 8am, and if she is late for dinner that will mean she has no free time after supper. Eleanor doesn't like rules and to be ripped away from her adored father and brothers at such a young age feels cruel. At least Robbie and Liam are together but here it is only her against the world.

When she's twelve at home for Easter she catches her mother in bed with another man. She shuts the door and tries to forget she's ever seen that in the first place.

Her brothers don't see it because they don't look for it but as she grows older its clear he's not the first man she's cheated on her father with. There's a succession of them, and she can see the little looks exchanged between them, the touches and the scheming plans her mother makes to spend time with them every time her father is away.

Eleanor knows that can be no divorce for the King. Her father deserves someone better than her mother, someone who will love him back but he won't ever be allowed find someone for himself so she keeps her mouth shut and simmers with resentment towards her mother for making her keep her secrets from her father. It makes her feel like she's betraying him and he is the one who has her loyalty, not her mother.

* * *

He grows up near Exeter, in an upper middle class family. His father is a Captain in the military and his mother is a school teacher. James is their second son and there's nothing remarkable about his perfectly normal, respectable family or upbringing. His father spends a fair bit of time overseas and they are stationed for two years in Italy and three years in France, where he learns to speak the language.

At University he studies politics and psychology, and finishes his degree at 21. After school he goes to LA where he works as waiter while he looks for a real job. His next job is as a bouncer at a nightclub in Vegas. He spends three years in America before returning home to live in London.

One month after he's arrived back home to England he gets a rather cryptic phone message from a friend of his fathers and does as he's told and comes in for a job interview in London. What he's actually being interviewed for is not entirely clear even after he leaves the room. But apparently they like him as he's called back for a round of tests.

A week later MI5 offers him a job and he spends the next six months training to be a spy. He learns how to kill someone with only his bare hands, he learns how to observe everything without ever being seen and he learns how win people's trust and to manipulate others ruthlessly, all in the name of his country. He also learns how to change identities like he changes suits. He excels at training and is ready to serve his King and country.

* * *

 _Eleanor: From the Greek meaning: Shining light. The bright one._

Every summer they go on holiday for a month, somewhere far away from home where everything can be relaxed and informal. With her brothers and father there, and her mother not harping on as much as usual about appearances and behaviour because they're on holiday, she feels free and happy. In her mind these are the golden times, where she's on the beach somewhere hot and sunny splashing about and laughing with Robbie and Liam in the water, while her father swims nearby. It feels like nothing can ever touch her and these days will last forever.

At fourteen Eleanor is starting to shine. She is quick and clever and her looks attract attention which has nothing to do with the fact she's royal.

Their holiday destination that year is Malta. Malta is a British territory so while there is time for her father to relax with his family, he also has some official duties to perform.

On holiday, there is her family and in the next door villa the Duke of Wiltshire and his family have come to join their holiday with them. The Duke is in his early forties and his loud American wife Pattie is with them along with their two whiny preteen daughters Rosemary and Henrietta and their seven year old son Crispin. The Duke and his wife have become good friends with her parents lately, her mother especially, and she has invited them to holiday with them.

By the fourth day of the holiday Eleanor's worked out that the Duke and her mother are sneaking off together during the daytime when her father's duties take her away from them. She watches them both resentfully. Her mother has taken to wearing skimpier than usual swimsuits, even more jewellery than she normally piles on and draping herself against the Duke to laugh at some joke of his. The Duke has wandering hands and spends far more time than is strictly necessary manhandling her mother while ostensibly helping her with her golf swing. It's quite sickening to watch so Eleanor spends her time hanging out with Robbie and Liam, skating and playing cricket down by the beach while taking swigs of the vodka they've stolen from the liquor cabinet at the villa.

Her father joins them some evenings. When he's home she sits next to her father, resting her head against his shoulder and it makes her feel like the Princess she is. She knows its childish that she acts this way around her father but she spends most of her time away from him at school and to have him to herself is something she treasures.

Time passes and in the third week of her holiday her father has to leave to go back to England to open Parliament. They'll join him next week. That evening they go out with the Duke's family for dinner and a French restaurant on the other side of the island. The meal has five courses and part way through the third course Eleanor starts to feel ill.

She tells her mother she wants to go home and her mother starts to beckon Marcus over but the Duke interrupts and offers to take her home instead. Eleanor collects her things and trips after him feeling more than a little bit queasy. In the car he tries to make conversation with her while she sits there sullenly quiet. She knows what he's up to with her mother and it's disgusting.

It's dark and she doesn't know this side of the island at all so she feels like she's getting lost as they round different bends and see the lights sparkling in the distance. The twists and turns in the journey aren't making her stomach settle and she just wants to get home.

The car slows as they approach a bridge and then it abruptly stops. Eleanor looks round to see where they are. They've pulled up in a bay overlooking the sea.

"Why are we stopping here," she questions, wondering if there's something wrong with the car.

The Duke leans over and kisses her. His hand runs down her neck and over her breast where his hand lingers.

"Because I wanted to get to know you better," he says, breathing into her ear. He reeks of alcohol which is obnoxious and makes her feel even sicker.

It's a shock to her that he would touch her this way. She is a Princess and all her life she's been protected and cossetted.

Eleanor pushes his hands off her in revulsion. "You won't be getting to know me better, you can't touch me like that. I'm a Princess. You're disgusting," she finishes, her voice filled with loathing.

She reaches for the door, yanks it open and bolts from the car. What she is supposed to do next she doesn't have a clue because she has no idea where she is but her instinct is to run, so she does.

He's left the headlights on and he can see her shadow in the car headlights and the distant lights from the town. She is quick but she's just a child and he is quicker.

He grabs her as she almost reaches the edge of the hillside and pulls her towards him. She tries to fight him but he pushes her down and pushes up her skirt. She hears the sound of his zipper and her stomach clutches in fear and then he is thrusting into her and god how it hurts but he shows no sign stopping.

Afterwards she can't even get to the ground because her legs are shaking too much. She really wants to run away but he insists on taking her back to the house and locks the car doors on her during the ride back. The car is so quiet that she can hear her heart hammering and her breaths falling quick and sharp in the dark. But she will not cry in front of him, she is a Princess after all.

When they get home she slams the door, runs to her room and locks the door. After a few minutes she hears the crunch of footsteps on gravel and the slam of a car door as he leaves to go back to the restaurant. She unlocks her door and finds her way to the liquor cabinet and drinks herself into a stupor.

The next morning Robbie finds her curled up in a ball in the laundry, mascara smeared all over the face and a half empty bottle of vodka beside her and wonders what the hell his baby sister is doing to herself.

That evening Eleanor attempts to tell her mother what happened last night. She only gets as far as saying that the Duke kissed her and touched her before her mother rolls her eyes and says sharply, "don't tell tales Eleanor. You're just a child, what could the Duke possibly see in you?"

For Eleanor to be old enough to be desired by men is ridiculous to her because that would make her, as her mother, an old woman. And the idea that Rupert would want Eleanor when he has her, the Queen, is absurb. Eleanor cannot eclipse her, she is the Queen.

Eleanor knows a royal dismissal when she sees it. She swallows the rest of her story and goes looking for rest of the vodka bottle from last night.

* * *

 _Well you built up a world of magic  
Because your real life is tragic  
_

Two days later they leave Malta and she goes back to school.

Sometimes she sees photos of the Duke in the papers and thinks about how much she hates him for what he has done to her but she reserves the worst of her hatred mother for bringing such an awful man into her orbit and then calling her a liar when she tried to explain what had happened.

The only outwards signs are that her grades wobble a little from their former heights and the drinking becomes a regular habit, but this is the first crack in Eleanor.


	2. Chapter 2

_So one day he found her crying  
Coiled up on the dirty ground  
Her prince finally came to save her  
And the rest you can figure out  
But it was a trick  
And the clock struck twelve_

At 17 she falls in love so hard and fast its completely terrifying.

His name is Alexander Beckworth, but everyone calls him Beck, and everything about him is perfect.

He is Robbie's new best friend from University and he comes to stay with them in Monaco. Because Robbie is the sensible one her father trusts him to take care of her and Liam so they are allowed to holiday together without her parents.

Beck is studying to be a lawyer and he's intelligent and completely charming. He's 21 – two years older than Robbie and he's taken two years off after school to work for his father's business.

She didn't know what to do around him, how to act, what to say or do. Her normal sarcastic, haughty royal air deserts her and she is mostly quiet when he's around.

Much as she wants to she doesn't have to impress him because for her, just being in the same room as him and being able to watch him and hear his voice is enough. She thinks its too much to hope or dream that he could possibly like her back too.

On the third day they're at Monaco Robert meets an Italian girl who he wants to spend every moment with. He disappears off most of the time, leaving just Beck and Liam and Lenny at the villa.

She and Beck actually become friends and her nervousness wears off a little but she is still dazzled by him, especially when he says things to her that make her feel special. He tells her how Robbie says she's going to be epic and how she's a star.

She sleeps with him one evening when Liam's out with a mate and it's a complete disaster. He does everything right, is a complete gentleman but she has no idea what to do. She doesn't tell him she's a virgin, because she's not technically and he might be able to tell, but she has no real experience of men beyond kissing. At first because he's gentle its not so bad, but when he is on top of her and inside her it reminds her of before and the feelings are so painful that afterwards she has to rush to the bathroom. She locks the door and collapses on the floor into a flood of messy tears. Eventually she pulls herself together, wipes away her tears, fixes her makeup and emerges back out and denies that there was anything wrong in the first place, but he's not stupid and can see that she's upset. He wraps his arms around her and holds her tight that night and the feeling of protection he provides makes her almost start to feel better.

The next morning they are leaving, her and Liam going their separate way back to school and Robert and Beck on to Milan. He takes her outside to the pool to speak to her. The first thing he says to her is that he thinks she's so beautiful and that she's precious to him causes her heart to feel like its going to burst.

But there's a but which makes her crash down to earth. He thinks she's too young for this. Robert's his best friend he doesn't want to do anything which would hurt her. He says he shouldn't have started last night at all.

To her, he makes it sound like its finished before it even began, and she takes her broken heart back to school. If he thinks she's too young, she vows to grow up for him. She gets a fake ID which has no currency most places because everyone in England knows her face and knows that she's at school. She persuades two of her friends to come to Paris with her and they manage to get in to a club. She's young and rich and privileged so drugs are easy to come by. Paris, and drugs, and drinking all become a weekend habit pretty quick, and within two months she's on her final warning at boarding school. A month later she is expelled. She is enrolled in another school but expelled two months later. Her mother decides to send her to a finishing school in Switzerland but that only lasts seven weeks and she emerges, unfinished, home in disgrace and still with the same bad habits she left with.

* * *

In his first year at MI5, James takes on seven different identities. He starts off as Andrew Smart, a posh boy from Bristol who's dabbling in drug dealing with the Russian Mafia. Next he's a people smuggler from the East End, then he's undercover working in a corrupt MP's office, then he's working in a London Bank to see if they're guilty of insider trading. There's still more assumed identities, more lies and more fake back stories.

Everything they've taught him comes into play when he's in a role. He practices knocking people out with a pinch to the neck, he slips something into a drink if he wants to search inside someone's bedroom, he seduces a Cabinet Minister's frumpy secretary to get access to his laptop. He is good at what he does because he can spin a web of lies to make others believe he's whatever they want him to be. He studies people intently to discover their weaknesses, then uses this against them like the master manipulator he is becoming.

He gets a kick out putting criminals away, and serving his country, but deep down he know that he also likes the games, and the lying and the manipulation.

The only thing that makes him wonder if he can keep doing this forever is that at the end of the day, when the comes home and peels off an expensive suit, discards his wallet with whatever false credit cards are inside it, he feels like he doesn't really know who he is anymore.

* * *

When she sees Beck next she's 18 and she's totally transformed herself. She wears lots of makeup, dresses in short back skirts and she smokes and drinks and takes far too many drugs. She's not the same inexperienced girl she was eight months ago, she's had two boyfriends and three one night stands. Now she's a tabloid favourite, 'the Party Princess." She's at University studying art and history, and no one can claim she hasn't grown up.

That year is the best time of her life, because she has Beck (well, sort of). They see each other every couple of weekends when he can manage some time off from University. Once she sees Beck again the wild behaviour becomes less wild. The drugs become recreational and she doesn't use them every day because he is the only high she needs and it makes her deliriously happy just to touch his face, and listen to his voice and have him hold her.

They don't talk about the future. He tells her she's young and she still has a lot of growing up to do. He doesn't want her to feel like he's stifling her. Liam and Robbie know about them, but her parents don't until they are splashed across the front of the tabloids holding hands. Her mother doesn't approve, but them when does she ever approve of anything her daughter does. Her mother has old fashioned ideas that royalty marries royalty and Beck is from a good family but they're not titled or royal.

Beck wants to travel the world when he finishes University. Although it hurts her, she lets him go, because she knows what its like to feel caged and she wants him to be free. They make plans for her to join him at Christmas.

Beck emails her from Australia, and South America, then America and finally Canada. He decides to stay in Vancouver and work there for a year and he lands himself a job in a law firm.

After he's been there four months, Robbie goes over to stay with him for two weeks. Robbie emails her to say they've been skiing and getting drunk and taking in Canada's sights and she's wildly envious, but contents herself with looking at flights so she can visit Beck in six weeks time at Christmas.

Robbie returns home looking worse for wear, but like he's had a great time and she badgers him to tell her everything about Beck and his life in Canada. Robbie goes quiet and takes her hand and she can tell he's about to tell her something she won't like.

When she hears Beck's met a girl in Canada and their engaged it feels like her heart stops beating.

Six months later Beck gets married and Robbie goes over again to be Beck's best man. She's invited but she just can't bring herself to go and watch the man she loves marry someone else. She sees the photos on Facebook and it hurts so much to see Beck looking so happy on his wedding day. Whatever his wife feels for him, she knows that she doesn't love him like she does, because her feelings are so strong and true.

She goes out and parties much too hard, gets wildly drunk and ODs in the early hours of the morning at a Parisian nightclub. This is how her first bodyguard gets himself fired.

Beck is the second crack in Eleanor.


	3. Chapter 3

_It's all about the exposure the lens I told her  
The angles are all wrong now  
She's ripping wings off of butterflies_

The only thing that seems to lift Eleanor even a little after Beck is more of everything. From here on in she's on a downward spiral of drink, drugs and partying.

While her mother lends huge support to British fashion by wearing their designs, Eleanor does the same for British gutter journalism by single handedly keeping paparazzi and sensationalist headline writers busy.

It's not that she wants to be bad, well ok so maybe she likes that her mother will have to book another botox appointment to erase the latest frown line her daughters exploits have created, but its that she can't seem to stop herself.

She just needs a hit of ecstasy, or coke or a drink to take her away from the mindnumbing dullness and hypocrisy of life at the Palace and life with her mother. And even more to stop her thinking about Beck. Its not that she wants to be bad or outrageous of splashed all over the front pages of the Daily Mail – its just an outcome of her refusal to settle for mediocracy and her need for the rush she gets from the drugs and the dancing and the drinking.

The only one who really seems to get her these days is Robbie. Even though he's away at Sandhurst, and learning everything the heir is supposed to about his country and what it means to serve it, he still find time to call her.

Robbie is her rock, her brother and her friend.

* * *

MI5 is getting intel of a possible threat from the inside to the Royal Family. Digging a little deeper only reveals several vipers living in the bosom of the family and they need someone inside to sort of the real from imaginary threats. Is Prince Cyrus really hungry enough for the crown to kill, could there be a threat from Prince Liam, second in line to the throne and what about the wild coked up Princess who has all kind of shady drug land connections?

By May, James knows his cover back to front, and he can recite it almost in his sleep. Jasper Frost from Shoreditch. Orphaned at the age of six and grew up in St Edmunds Children's Home in Camden. At 27, Jasper has spent 3 years working security in London clubs and more recently spent another 4 years working the Parliamentary Security Service.

Jasper is a little overawed by his latest appointment, because he's landed a role at the very top of his profession, working security at Buckingham Palace. As arranged, in Paris they have an agent undercover who captures an image of the Princess Eleanor. Predictably the royal wild child is not wearing any underwear and the photos lead to what's dubbed in the press as "beavergate." Even more predictably, the Princess's bodyguard find himself out of a job and walking the streets of Paris on a chilly May morning alone.

Cue the entrance of Jasper Frost, Bodyguard to HRH Princess Eleanor. To the world Jasper is nervous, and bumbling and quite, quite proper. He's not quite sure how to address the Princess, and he suspects she's not going to be the easiest charge, given her the extensive and colourful past.

But in life, as in fiction, nothing is as it seems.

* * *

This morning he woke up in bed with a Princess.

He wasn't there for the obvious reason. Firstly Jasper was following orders from the King.

Although Jasper and the rest of the world don't know it Eleanor's not as much of a slut as everyone thinks she is. Not because she's not that way inclined when she's trashed but mostly because her father has strict orders that her bodyguards peel her off whoever she is plastered all over at the end of the night and return her home safe and sound. To him she is still his little girl and he just wants to make sure that someone is taking care of her. So apart from the occasional quickie in the toilets, contrary to what the papers suggest although she might be photographed writhing around with plenty of different men she doesn't actually end every night in a strange bed.

The King's orders are one reason why Jasper takes her home. The other was that as she'd been totally trashed the night before he was worried that if he left her alone she might very well OD. Sure she had some vacuous aristocrat friend she'd been making out with all night beside her, but by the look of that girl she was neither use nor ornament. The Princess was tiny and he was seriously concerned after watching the way she carried on that sooner or later her body wouldn't be able to cope anymore of the drugs from the hard parting lifestyle she led. He didn't want to be responsible for that happening on his watch so he'd stayed with her during the night.

In the morning she'd took one look at him on the other side of the bed and attempted to fire his ass, telling him she didn't remember a thing and that he was "totally forgettable."

Her comments were sort of ironic because being totally forgettable was actually one of the many things he'd been trained to be by MI5. Some of the others were deadly and a total chameleon who was able to switch his identity in the blink of an eye.

Jasper hadn't spent a month learning his backstory and another week arranging security clearance just to be fired on his second day of his undercover job. With the death of Prince Robert the intel they'd received was clearly genuine and who better to stay close to than Robert's beloved wild child sister Princess Eleanor. The news of Prince Robert's death only made the need to find the culprit even more urgent as with a killer on the loose now both Prince Liam and Princess Eleanor as next in line to the throne were potentially in danger.

So when the Princess had dismissed him from her service for supposedly sleeping with him, he had no hesitation in lying through his teeth by telling her he'd drugged her drink, taken her home and shagged her senseless while capturing the whole sordid thing on film. That sort of thing would go for millions if he chose to and she knew it.

He'd left her that morning staring at him in shock, jaw on the floor while he swaggered out of there flipping his coat over his shoulder and announcing that he would be keeping his job and he liked the benefits. If his role called for swagger, then bring it on.

 _Please let me know if you're enjoying the story by reviewing. Thanks._


	4. Chapter 4

She is not the first Princess Eleanor. When she was little her father used to tell about the other Eleanors who grew up in castles long ago.

There was the Princess Eleanor who married the Spanish King and ruled over many lands and castles in her own right. This Eleanor was famed for her beauty and nobility and was much loved by the Spanish people. Then there is the Princess Eleanor who is the daughter of the great King Edward I. And the Eleanor who is the daughter of the tryant King John. This Eleanor was married as a child bride to a nobleman, then widowed and took a vow of chastity only to fall in love with a dashing French soldier. They married secretly which sent her brother the King into a rage in which he claimed that her husband Simon de Montfort had seduced his sister. Her husband was later to lead a rebellious alliance of nobles against the King and die on the battlefield.

There were other Princess Eleanors who later became Queens. There is Eleanor the wife of Edward I. Theirs was one of the great love stories of the Middle Ages. They had a large family and he took his wife with him on Crusade to the Middle East and after her death erected crosses where her coffin had rested on route to be buried.

There is a Queen Eleanor who came from Provence and married Henry III. This Eleanor was a dark haired beauty who was famed for her intelligence, skill at writing poetry, beauty and sense of fashion.

Of all her namesakes, Eleanor's favourite is Eleanor of Aquitaine. She grew up in the richest duchy in France and was the most sought after woman in France - a spirited heiress with the courage of a King inside the body of great beauty. First married to the weak willed King of France who was infatuated with her, Eleanor shocked court elders with her lack of decorum but delighted her many admirers with her charm and fashion. Not satisfied with her pious first husband, Eleanor petitioned for a divorce. Once single, she survived two kidnapping attempts from French nobles who wanted to marry her and instead sent for her heir to the English crown and promptly married him, later becoming Queen. A tempestuous marriage followed with Eleanor eventually supporting her sons to rebel against their father. Eleanor was then imprisoned by her husband but freed by her son when he ascended the throne. Fate could not keep Eleanor down as after her husbands death, Eleanor ruled as Queen while her son was on crusade.

Her father says that he called her Eleanor (and the name is his choice, rather than her mother's) because he knew that from her namesakes his Eleanor would be spirited, and bright and beautiful, and she is, he says.

* * *

At the end of each day the man masquerading as Jasper Frost sends a secret report to MI5 HQ at Thames House.

Prince Cyrus is top of his list of suspects. Devious, manipulative, with an all consuming lust for power in the form of the throne he's pretty sure he's already seen him threaten the King.

Queen Helena wasn't initially on his radar, but he's noted she has an usually close relationship with Cyrus, and the two of them spend several hours together behind closed doors doing or plotting god knows what.

Prince Liam he'll keep watching, but his initial assessment is that he's not the threat. He's too young, too idealistic and certainly doesn't approach anywhere near the level of cunning and malice Prince Cyrus brings to be table.

The Princess Eleanor is the one he has had the most opportunity to observe. He's starting to regret being assigned to her because she's completely impossible. He's dealt with women before, a lot of them, but she is by far the worst he's encountered yet.

Ever since he waived his phone containing the alleged tape in her face, she's gone out of her way to make his life hell – ordering him to fetch her this and bring her that like he's her butler. He's not and he tells her that's not his job and she will have to ring the bell if she wants a drink or someone to fetch her shoes or whatever her latest demand is.

For all that she's a spoilt, pampered Princess who divides her time between designer fashion, designer drugs, and tripping about in short skirts and high heels while totally off her face at latest clubs, she isn't stupid so he wouldn't put it past her to mastermind a plan. But he can't see why she would want to. The Princess wants to live the life of the privileged elite without any of the responsibilities that go with it and being the Queen would only impose more duties and obligations on her.

So he spends his time watching – he never misses anything - and keeps filing his reports.

* * *

 _Keep your feet on the ground  
When your head's in the clouds_

Robert is the third crack in Eleanor but you can't see it from outside her gilded cage.

Superficially the Press know everything about her life - what she wears, where she goes each day, who her friends are, what she says or doesn't say.

But they know nothing about what goes on inside her heart. They don't know that she is still hopelessly in love with a man who is married to another woman, they don't know that Robbie loved her best of all and his death has left her reeling, they don't know that her mother spends her time trying to control and compete with her, they don't know that underneath the glamour, the designer dresses and the designer drugs Eleanor is more than a little broken inside.

After Robbie's death, Eleanor lifts her game and parties a little later, becomes more reckless with drugs and men (or women, whoever is closest will do) and just generally lives up to her 'wild child' reputation.

Her mother is not impressed of course. The latest plan her mother has been hatching is to try and marry her to an eligible European Prince. She tells her mother arranged marriages are sooo nineteenth century and she can shove her matchmaking plans up her arse. In any case, she's heard that the mothers of prospective princes have heard of her plans and panicked, making it quite clear they don't want a new princess who might be at risk of ODing at official functions or being photographed partying the night away pantyless with a fag in one hand and booze in the other. Advantage Eleanor, she thinks, smirking to herself when she hears this news.

Her mother, on the other hand, lets out an exasperated sigh when Lucius tells her that none of the European Royals will have her sluttish, drug addicted Princess daughter.

"Really Eleanor, what are we going to do with you?"

"Get thee to a nunnery, why woulds't thou be a breeder of sinners?," Lucious remarks snidely to himself, then looks up at the Queen adding in explanation, "Hamlet, your majesty."


	5. Chapter 5

_Hmm so this is full of twisted Jasper – Eleanor, spiders fighting in a basin kind of interactions_

Ophelia is her brother's new love interest.

Ophelia is American and pretty and sweet natured but the dress she's selected for tonight's official reception manages to be both prim and proper and incredibly unflattering as it bulks around Ophelia's mid- section. It looks – and this was the worst kind of insult she could possibly imagine – like something one of her ginger cousins would pick out.

Eleanor wrinkles her nose at the dress and decides to take pity on her.

"You can't wear that, it makes you look like a pregnant virgin and I don't associate with those."

"Let's find you something to wear from my wardrobe," Eleanor adds, running her fingers across the rack of ball dresses.

Eleanor picks out a sleek black fitted dress that hugs tightly to Ophelia's curves.

"Turn around," she instructs Ophelia, who twirls obediently.

Gemma's gonna hate this, and Liam's gonna love it. Win win.

"And so that's how Cinderella shall go to the ball," Eleanor says, grinning, then waives her onwards towards the ball and her waiting prince. "Off you go."

* * *

 _If it's not real  
You can't hold it in your hand  
You can't feel it with your heart  
And I won't believe it  
But if it's true  
You can see it with your eyes  
Oh, even in the dark  
_

The Princess is furious that her bodyguard has dragged her home early from a night out.

"What makes you think you have the right to literally pick me up and carry me home when the nights only started," she says, storming about her room. "You don't order me around, I'm the Princess. I give the orders!"

Jasper raises an eyebrow ever so slightly, but the rest of his expression remains the same.

"Your behaviour was on list," he replies.

"Not the fucking list," Eleanor replies, rolling her eyes in exasperation. Every single time she is brought back home early it is always about the list.

Every bodyguard she went through was just another chance for her mother to sharpen her pen and add another item to the list of things her next bodyguard was responsible for checking she didn't do in public on pain of instant dismissal.

"Bar fights, drug overdoses, public nudity not limited to but including pantyless front page headlines, STDs, pregnancy and public sex or indecency," Jasper recited, having memorised the list for his job interview.

"All things which if you do, I get fired for. All things which you won't be doing on my watch, otherwise I'll be releasing the video."

Eleanor glares at him, how dare he threaten her with the damn video - again.

"Oh come on, the only thing that was going on there was a little heavy petting. My last bodyguard Ed and I had an agreement that I was allowed out until at least 3 so long as I wasn't too bad. First you drug me and film a sex show and now you're dragging me back to the house at 9.30 acting like you're the mother fucking superior in a convent and I'm a naughty third former."

The Princess was in the middle of throwing a right royal strop. Her eyes flash dark, and her face flushes with colour and she stamps one delicate high heeled foot down on the floor, and dramatically throws herself onto the chair by her dresser.

Jasper eyed her impassively, "Well firstly its 1am not 9.30, second if you're comparing me to a nun you have no idea what you're dealing with here and last I don't think anyone's gonna mistake you for a virgin Princess."

She glares at him.

Jasper turns around and settles himself on her couch, then reaches for the whisky decanter and helps himself to a drink.

Eleanor leans forward and says sharply, "you're not a guest here, you can't just help yourself to a drink whenever you like. If I'm not allowed out then you can sod off for the night."

There is a pause and Jasper makes no move to go or even acknowledge that he's heard her.

"Off you go," Eleanor repeats her request, waiving her hands in a royal dismissal.

Jasper leans back against the couch and looks at her. He's been watching her the whole time over the past four days, partly because its his job, but partly because he just can't help it.

Watching her strut around for the past four days in tiny little dresses, ordering all and sundry to do her will was hard enough. Tonight he'd had to literally pick her up and drag her from the club to prevent some aristocrat with more money than common sense from literally shagging her on the dance floor. But seeing him put his hands all over her, sliding up her legs, his tongue in her mouth while her head fell back so her dark hair streamed like a waterfall down her back is pure torture. There's no getting away from the fact that he finds the Princess sexy as hell. Having to watch her slutting about with a different man every night is going to drive him totally insane.

He has to have her. No one else will do for him and once she's his no one else will be allowed to touch her. He will own her.

He casually takes out his phone, and then looks up at her and smiles like the snake he can be when he's angry.

"I know you think you own me Princess because I'm your bodyguard, but its actually the other way around. I own you because right here I have video of you behaving like a common whore, writhing about moaning and begging me to give it to you. How do you think your father will feel about his Princess when he sees that?"

He can see the outrage and shock flicker across her face. With all the mistakes she's made in her life her father has still managed to love her, but this may be a step too far even for him. And mostly, everything she does that makes news headlines is the result of a stupid drunken mistake, or the result of her being totally baked, so she doesn't have the chance to think before they happen. But here she can choose to stop this before it happens and then maybe she won't have to see the look of disappointment she imagines on her father's face when he finds out there is a sex tape of her on the internet.

She makes up her mind to stop this, right here and right now.

"What do you want here? Do you want money?"

Today he'd spent all day tripping around after her while she stared daggers at him and ordered him around like the spoilt, spiteful little madam she had shown herself to be. Evidently despite her regular starring role in The Sun and the Daily Mail for her coke addled, promiscuous scantily clad night time escapades he can see she's not keen on starring in her own x rated video. Even if it is entirely fictitious.

Eleanor gets up and goes over to her handbag, pulls out a chequebook and writes out a check for twenty thousand pounds. She goes over to him and stands in front of him with the cheque in her hand.

"There's your ill-gotten blackmail cash then, Jasper from wherever. Off you go," she waives her hands towards the door dismissively.

It's clear to him that the combination of years of training and ingrained inbred servile obedience from her English subjects mean that the Princess seems perfectly confident that whatever difficult situations life throws at her can all be resolved with either by wads of taxpayers cash or impervious royal authority.

Well that won't work on him.

He shakes his head and stays exactly where he is. "I'm not interested in the cash Princess."

"What do you mean you don't want the cash? Of course you want the cash, you're American aren't you?"

In her head it was obvious that an American would be interested in cash, the same as they were interested in talking loudly as they made their way round the Palace while wearing walk shorts and what they rather hilariously referred to as 'fanny packs.'

"Maybe," he replies. He's not giving anything away here.

Eleanor is looking at him closely.

"You know what I think," she says slowly and here she thinks she's discovered his secret. "I think that given your sewer rat morals you must be a papp."

"Maybe," he smirks, which further enrages her. He likes the idea of being thought of as a papp

Why is he so infuriatingly cocky, and yet quite devastatingly handsome.

"So you're here posing as my bodyguard to get some dirt on my family. Bored of taping my families' private phone calls and hiding in bushes are you?"

"Maybe," he replies again, shrugging.

"This must be a new moral high for the press, you drugging me and raping me and taping a video of it all. Who do you work for – the Sun?"

Eleanor spits it out, totally disgusted with the whole idea, and the worst of it all is that in her head she will be fodder for the lowest class of newspaper - probably assuming the spot normally reserved for topless models.

"Maybe," he says again, for what seems to her the hundredth time.

This time she is so enraged she actually picks up his glass and throws it across the room, where it shatters into a thousand pieces.

He gets to his feet and grabs her hands. She is actually trembling with rage over everything he's done.

"Don't you touch me," she almost screams at him, wrestling to get free from his hold but it is no use.

Jasper is strong and silent, he doesn't let her go and just stands there holding her until she's stops trembling and becomes still.

"Alright Princess," he says and in her ear his voice is soft and controlled, and oh so dangerous. "Here's how this is going to play out. I don't want your cash but I do want you."

He sees her eyes widen and hears her sharp intake of breath.

"How dare you try and blackmail me," she says, wrenching her arms from his. She lifts her hand to strike him across the face, but he is too quick and catches her hand.

"Fighting me is no good Princess, I'm trained to defend myself and to kill, so you're not going to win here," he says, shaking his head and stepping closer to her again.

"Your father doesn't need to know about our little video, provided you do what I say, when I say. Now take off your dress."

She stares at him, still in shock that he's once again turned the tables on her so that he is the cat and she is the mouse in whatever game he is playing here.

Tonight there is something hard and calculating in his eyes. He says his name is Jasper, he pretended he's nervous about working for her, but he switches persona and accents in the blink of an eye and it leaves her totally disorientated. She still has no clue who this man is, where he's come from, why he's doing this. She doesn't want to admit it because she's a Princess and she always calls the shots, but it's almost like she's out of her depth with him.

"You can't seriously think that you're going to get away with this," she says instead. "Aren't there cameras in the halls, Ted will see that you've coming in here tonight and not leaving," she states, thinking she has outwitted him.

"That won't be a problem," he drawls in his odious American accent, raising an eyebrow.

Damn him, he's already switched off the cameras or plans on erasing the footage or something. He's so fucking cunning she thinks.

"Take off your dress," he repeats again. "Or do I have to show Daddy the video of his porn star princess?"

Her heat is beating so fast its hard to focus on what he is saying. She is a Princess, not a school girl so with whatever sick, twisted little plans he has for tonight she won't let him see how she really feels. And how she really feels is like she's 14 running through the dark on a hilltop near Monaco.

She knows she's been totally awful to him today but his taping the video to use it against her is truly reprehensible and she can't do anything about it, she can't tell anyone so she's just spiteful and rude to him instead. It doesn't help that all day people have been talking to her about Robert, and it hurts so much every time she is reminded that he's gone.

But now he has the power and he's using it to humiliate her.

She hates him.

"So you decided to protect me from Sebastien's wandering hands taking advantage of me by bringing me home to take advantage of me for some blackmail sex. Really Jasper, that is sooo sweet, you are soo chivalrous," Eleanor replies, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Jasper's heated with a heady mix of lust, alcohol and desire for revenge which on him is a dangerous combination.

If he were a better man, he would step away now and leave her alone, for all that she's a spoilt, spiteful little madam who could do with being taken down a peg or two. But he is not that man – at least when it comes to her anyway.

She really needs a drink before anything more of what's going to happen here tonight goes down. She steps away from him, pours herself a drink and gulps it down so it burns fiery in her throat. It helps to take the edge off her feelings somehow.

She still hasn't taken off her dress, and Jasper now comes over to her and stands behind her, tugging the zip down to the bottom and peeling her dress off of her so it falls to the ground in a whoosh of expensive silk.

"Turn around," he hisses in her ear, removing the glass from her hand and placing it on the table. This time she follows his command, resigned to the hopeless inevitability of this.

His eyes rove over her body and he looks infuriatingly pleased with himself when he inspects her.

He takes her hands in his and kisses her, pinning her down onto the bed. His hands are working his way up her body stripping her of her underwear and then taking off his shirt and trousers. There's nothing tentative about the way he touches her. His hands and mouth are all over her, hot and hard and demanding and she can't even breathe from it. The whole thing is just overwhelming.

He presses her legs apart and his fingers start probing her in a way that is totally humiliating and yet totally arousing. He doesn't finish what he starts though and instead he shifts so he is hard against her thigh. She tenses and tries to push him away from her. "You can't," she starts but he cuts her off by holding down her hands down to her sides.

"But I am, Princess." he replies and shifts his weight so he is on top of her.

He flicks open a condom and slides it on. Then he pushes into her and he feels too big inside her, he weighs too heavy on her and everything is too, too intimate now given that (unsually for her) she's not completely wasted like normal.

"You feel so tight baby," he says, when he has pushed himself as deep inside her as he can go. She hates losing and right now his face clearly says he's winning at her expense.

"Well you better store this up in your wank bank Jasper because the next time you'll have sex will be in prison and you'll be the bitch."

Jasper almost splutters with laughter that the Princess could still manage to deliver that line with as much regally haughty indifference as she did, considered she was in the process of being well and truly fucked by someone pretending to blackmail her.

He starts moving inside her.

"Oh believe me, this is going right to the top shelf of my wank bank," he smirks and then his tongue finds its way into her mouth, cutting off any further comments from her.

She doesn't just hate losing, she thinks to herself, she hates him. Spitefully, she claws her fingernails down his back, sharp scratches etching into his skin.

This produces no reaction in him whatsoever, except for him removing her hands from his back and pinning them behind her head.

He slides in and out, and his gaze on her face is too intense and she has to turn her face away.

He keeps going, thrusting in and out. He turns his head to watch her and there's something about his piercing blue eyes, there's something about him that's too compelling and she can't look away from him.

Is he trying to take her apart piece by piece by doing this to her? This was just supposed to be sex, quick and casual. But when he kisses her, his body inside her, its like he's trying to own her, to stamp himself all over her.

She is used to calling the shots, but he is in control every step of the way here and she is forced to let let him do things to her she never asked for but can't stop.

It all goes downhill from there because pretty soon the pressure is building up too much for her and her fingernails dig into his wrists each time he comes closer inside her. Her eyelids flicker against his cheek and she starts to gasp as he moves harder and faster. The world has narrowed to a horizon of nothing but him on her. Her cheeks are flushed, her head lolls back and she wants, oh she wants that bad.

His body pounds into hers faster and faster until he comes inside her quick and hard but she is already gone.

He's watches her. Her eyes are closed. Eleanor the Princess is small and stubborn and quite, quite beautiful.

She can still feel the burning trail of heat inside her from him and the slick sweat of his chest is damp against her breasts. The worst of if it is that although he's had her here tonight, he's left no clues as to his identity in the process. She's no closer to the truth about who he is or why he is doing this to her.

"Eleanor. Baby" he leans over and says into her ear. He strokes her hair back from her head and his breath is hot against her cheek. She doesn't open her eyes.

It doesn't make what he's done to her all right and she won't, she can't forgive him for that, but there's something in his voice that wasn't there earlier this evening. He's managed to make her feel totally violated and totally vulnerable tonight and she's not ready to deal with anything more.

His hands drop to her side and his fingers interlace with hers.

Come tomorrow they will both pretend this never happened at all.


	6. Chapter 6

I am continuing this story as a separate new story called 'Outside the castle walls' (click on my username to view the story)


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